Chapter
ARCHIE PUSHES OPEN the door of his coffee home, The Rest Shtop, and enters warmth that embraces him with aromas of brewing coffee and strawberry danishes, sounds of hissing steam jetted from a frother, and murmurings of satiated people.
“Hey, how are you? The usual?” the barista calls, poking his head out from behind his magical machine.
“Yes,” Archie replies, walking up to the counter.
“It’s on the house. And a—”
“No need. I can pay.”
“We have this argument every year. I insist. You say no. I say yes. And who wins?” the barista grins, his teeth flashing good humour, his eyes challenging yet sharing a laugh, as he twists the knob to release richly aromatic espresso into a tiny glass cup.
Archie smiles, “You do,” as the barista turns to the brewer on the wall counter, slips a large paper coffee cup under the nozzle, presses down on the lever above, and pours a cup of steaming coffee for Archie.
“That’s right. So why don’t we say, ‘You get coffee on the house and a doughnut?’”
“Alright.” Archie dips his head in good grace at giving in. The barista hands him a steaming cup of coffee along with a napkin and the doughnut in its bag that had been readied a minute before Archie had arrived. Archie walks them over to the counter against the window. He reaches into his upper right-hand jacket pocket and retrieves the ziplock plastic bag filled with brown-plastic pill bottles he stores there. He twists off one cap at a time and doles out one at a time into his hand a pill, a vitamin, an anti-oxidant, extracts, and energy builders, swallowing each with a gulp of hot, strong coffee. Finished, he recaps all the bottles, slips them back into the well-used bag, presses his fingers over its top, zips it closed, folds over the top, and pushes the bag back into his pocket, its home.
Archie leans forward, elbows on the counter, and sips the rest of the coffee as it cools in between the four bites it takes for him to eat his doughnut. He cannot taste the cinnamon sugar coating, neither the zing of the spice nor the caramel sweetness of the organic sugar. He wipes his hands with the napkin and contemplates the passing parade of people hurrying to work, heads down against the drizzle that suddenly spurts from the flat, grey sky. Umbrellas pop open, and walking turns to half jogging.
Archie lets his mind fill up with the people that he sees, the brake-and-hasten driving he notices, the sidewalks he watches darken under the onslaught of the quickening rain. The visual obliterates the emotional and the memories that arrive every morning dragging in their emotions fresh as if they’re new, current, and hadn’t visited him before.
Archie sighs, slips off his stool, and walks over to the trash bin and tosses in his cup, crumpled napkin, and empty bag.
“Bye!” the barista calls out. Archie looks towards him and nods as the man adds: “And thank you for your sacrifice.”
More than you know, more than you know, Archie thinks as he pushes open The Rest Shtop’s glass door and breathes in the pelting rain. He strides rapidly down the street to St. James Cathedral and steps into the shelter of its open doors. He listens to the beat of the heavens for a minute before fishing his iPhone from out of his left-hand pocket and launching Signal video call. Andrew’s mug appears on his display.
“Good to see you, Archie,” he booms, meaning it literally.
Archie nods; the visual call means he doesn’t have to talk. Not talking suits him.
“You all set, Archie?”
Archie nods again. This time Andrew waits. Archie’s commanding officer is compassionate but unrelenting. Andrew wants a verbal answer. He knows Archie can do it, and so he waits because he doesn’t want Archie to deteriorate further. Archie knows this. Each time, he thinks he really can’t speak. Each time, he resents Andrew waiting for him to verbalize thoughts. Each time, he questions to himself why Andrew does this to him. And then finally he acquiesces. “Yes sir,” Archie replies.
“Good man. If we don’t see you in the crowd—” Archie frowns. Andrew changes tack. “You got that assistive device on you?”
“No.”
“Go back to get it.”
Archie replies with silence. He leaves his room in the morning and returns at night. It’s his way, his routine. Returning between those hours is not his way.
Andrew’s voice takes on a commanding tone: “We need you there. Nadine is counting on us.”
“I know, sir. Her ex paid me a visit.”
“When?” Andrew interrogates.
“Early this morning.”
“What happened?”
“I got rid of him.”
“Why did he come?”
“He thought I was having an affair with Nadine.”
Andrew sighs and looks off the screen to the left unseeingly. “Well…,” he muses, “Hopefully he won’t return.”
“He will.”
Andrew looks back through the screen into his eyes. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You carrying?”
“Yes,” Archie replies expressionlessly. Archie may be in Canada, but he’s an American. And he’s got a mission. It’s his story.
Andrew stares into his eyes for a long minute. Archie returns the look without a twitch. He feels nothing, anyway. Andrew is the first to look away. He thinks for a moment. “Alright. You think he’ll return?”
“I do.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“He tried to break down my door. I took care of him.”
“Is he hurt?”
“Only his ego.”
“That means he’ll be like a pit bull with a toy poodle in his mouth.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We can handle him. But it’s Nadine I’m worried about.”
“Why?” Archie wrinkles up his eyebrows. The first sign of emotion. “She can handle herself. I saw her take down a man twice her size and height, no sweat.”
“This isn’t Afghanistan.”
“So? He’s smaller than the men she dealt with there.”
“That’s as may be. But she’s not protecting anyone, not fighting for her country.”
“That shouldn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“She’s fighting for herself. That matters.”
“You would think so. But women are…”
“Pawpaw used to say you couldn’t trust women.”
“He was wrong.”
Archie’s mouth tightens. Pawpaw cannot be declared wrong, especially as doubt had crept into him these last few months about his grandfather’s philosophy, about his teachings, about his action. He doesn’t want to face his doubts, though, nor think how he’d trusted Nadine in the field and depended on her confident, cheerful presence. He suddenly wants to press the red phone receiver icon. But he’s done that before and found Andrew in his face minutes later blasting him. It’s better to stay on the phone, no matter how much the rising tide of panic and anger impels him to run. He resists. Andrew narrows his eyes slightly. And then deliberately relaxes them so that they look wide open, unthreatening. “Nadine is complicated. She needs our help.”
“She has mine.”
Andrew nods. “Good. She has all of ours. We just need to be prepared.”
“Always.”
Andrew lets that go. He checks the time at the top of his smart phone’s display and knows Archie has as well. Morning prayer will start soon in the cathedral. He doesn’t know why Archie goes but does know it’s sacrosanct. Archie likes his morning routine, and not even Remembrance Day preparations may interrupt it.
“If we don’t see you in the march past, we’ll meet at Nathan Phillips Square. Usual place.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Archie refrains from saluting reflexively before pressing the red receiver icon. He swivels on his toes, removing his hat, and walks in to hushed St. James Cathedral, his boots ringing on the floor and heart finding peace in the familiar fragrances of wood polish and well-worn books that envelop him, to sit in his accustomed folding chair at the back of the east side aisle’s sunlit Lady Chapel.